Consultedge

Making Connections in Hearst Corporation's "Green Headquarters"

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Making Connections in Hearst Corporation’s “Green” Headquarters Opened in 2006, Hearst Corporation’s world headquarters in New York City demonstrates a tangible commitment to environmental responsibility, occupant health, and communication among the building’s 2,000 employees. The 46-story building became the first occupied building in New York City to gain “Gold’ certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. Less visible to casual observers, but critical to fulfilling Hearst Corporation’s business and operational goals, the Hearst Tower incorporates a communication system that efficiently connects employees with each other, off-site colleagues, and customers.

Consultedge, Inc. designed and deployed a comprehensive communications solution that includes Avaya’s Communication Manager (CM) Software, S8710 Media Server, G650 Media Gateways, and Modular Messaging. Startup of the integrated solution dovetailed with the October 2006 occupancy of the Hearst Tower. Designed to blend seamlessly with the IT infrastructure designed by Constantin Walsh-Lowe, Consultedge’s solution addresses business needs including:

Future Expansion: A standards-based telecommunications platform that supports widely accepted application-programming interfaces, enabling cost-effective scalability and use of future telephony applications from any technology provider;

Messaging: A powerful IP- and standards-based voice and fax-messaging platform designed for single or multi-site applications. The consistent user interface enables faster end-user adoption and reduced training costs while providing 24/7 access to messages from telephones, fax machines and PCs;

Reliability: Duplicate servers, both running on a core LINUX operating system, for built-in redundancy and the highest reliability in the industry (99.999%). The two-server system enables each server to be placed in different locations within the building or in separate buildings up to 10 kilometers apart;

Mobility: Seamless movement from cellular to office phone through a single phone number, facilitating communications with customers and colleagues. A unique dual connect capability provides circuit-switched quality while minimizing bandwidth requirements;

Capacity: Robust busy-hour call-completion capacity of 375,000, with more than 2,500 mailboxes configured for unified messaging and a conversation-storage capacity of 400 hours;

Call Privileges: Services including automatic callback and exclusion, call forwarding, data privacy, priority calling, personal station access, trunk-to-trunk transfer restriction code, conferencing, coordinated dialing between locations, call blocking, paging, and a directory feature;

Administration Control: Resources for troubleshooting, diagnostics, alarm reporting, reprogramming of redirect sequences for each station user, creation of an audit trail for each station user and each administrative password;

Security: An integrated platform for proactive, remote, secure management and monitoring of voice, video and data networks.

In addition to its communications system, the Hearst Tower incorporates unique features designed to enhance employee performance, safeguard the health of all building occupants, and promote environmental responsibility. The facility includes a cutting-edge broadcast studio; digital photography center and 168-seat theater; exhibition spaces; and the Good Housekeeping Research Institute, where virtually all consumer products in the country are tested.

Consultedge, Inc. leverages best-in-class technologies to produce converged voice/data communications solutions that drive business performance and efficiency. Specializing in IP Telephony, Contact Center/CRM and Messaging, Consultedge’s services extend from needs assessment to system planning, design, deployment and maintenance. Consultedge was selected in 2006 and 2005 by CRN Magazine as one of the nation’s 100 Fastest Growing Technology Companies.


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